A Bomb Built in Hell

out of the house, to take a vacation for a couple of weeks and to leave you the key. In the basement, the fourth beam from the door holding up the ceiling is hollow in the middle. Cut it down. There’s fifty thousand dollars in clean bills there. Take it and do it by yourself. But if Israel is in Cleveland, don’t touch the money—just leave it there. My wife has her own money coming, you understand? That’s your case money—it’s safer there than anyplace you could find. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“All right, there’s just one more thing ... you know why you’re going to do this?”

“Yes, Pop, I know why.”

“Who taught you why?”

“You did.”

“And that means you’re my blood, understand? I’m going out ... but you’re going to pay back every last one of the motherfucking swine for me.”

“I will.”

“I know. I waited years for you to come. Remember I told that judge that they couldn’t kill what I stood for? Well, this is perfect revenge. They took my life and buried me ... and I built a bomb right here in hell and it’s going to blow their devil’s hearts right out of their chests.”

“I’ll see you soon, Carmine.”

“I guess you will, son—but make it count for something while you’re out there.”

“Pop, was I just the best of the lot ... or was it that you couldn’t wait any longer?”

“No! You were what I wanted. You are my son ... I could have waited a hundred fucking more years....”

Carmine slumped dead against the Wall.

Wesley walked away. Even though he was known to be the old man’s partner, he was never a suspect. In any event, the autopsy showed an aortic aneurysm. The only thing that confused the doctors was that the burst vessels showed that the old man had been dead for more than thirty minutes when they found him. But medicine is an imperfect science and another dead con wasn’t worth the trouble of a complete investigation.

22/

The young guard came down the tier to Wesley’s cell carrying a piece of paper and a friendly, concerned look on his fat face.

“Listen, kid—you want to go to the old man’s funeral?”

“Yeah ... yessir, I would ... could you fix it?”

“Well, I might be able to if we could really talk, you know?”

“No, sir, but I’m willing to talk with you, sir.”

“Good,” the guard said, walking into Wesley’s cell and lowering his voice. “The old bastard left some money stashed, right?”

“I don’t know, sir. Did he?”

“Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it, forget it. Let the fucking rats be his pallbearers.”

Wesley just looked blankly at the guard, thinking that’s what he’d have anyway. He kept looking straight ahead until the guard left in disgust. Wesley had already checked the law and knew he wouldn’t be allowed to attend—he wasn’t a blood relative in any sense recognized by the State.

23/

When he hit the Yard seventeen days later, a slender Latin guy was running the Book, and Carmine’s stash of cigarette cartons was all gone from the loose floorboards in the back of the print shop.

Wesley passed the Latin by without a glance. He wrote off the cigarettes and the Book and the whispers about a man being a pussy if he wouldn’t fight for what was rightfully his.

He did the next years like moving through cold, clear Jell-O. He was able to dodge parole twice by infractions of institutional rules. But the last time, when he only had nine months to go on his sentence, he knew that they were going to parole him to keep him under supervision, no matter what he did. He knew a hundred ways to fuck up the parole hearing, but he didn’t want the additional surveillance that came with getting a “political” label, and he didn’t want the additional time that an assault would bring. He spent several hours talking with Lee until he learned what the older man knew.

Wesley appeared before the Board promptly—unshaven and smoking a cigarette. The Chairman, who was a Reverend, spoke first.

“Is there any reason why we should parole you at this time?” And Wesley broke into sincere and hearty laughter.

“What is so funny?”

“Man, you got to parole me—I’m nine months short.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to us. We want to know what you’ve done to rehabilitate yourself.”

“I haven’t done a motherfucking thing. But so what? You guys always parole a man who’s less than a year short—that’s the law, right? Anyway, I’m innocent.”

“That’s not the law!” the Reverend proclaimed self-righteously. “Your case will be reviewed like any other.”

“But the guys in the block said...”